February 2013

In response to a business community campaign calling for broad CEQA reform, California State Senator Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg released his highly anticipated CEQA “modernization” bill,  SB 731.  So far, the bill is more remarkable for what it lacks, than for what it contains: 

  • A Co-author.  2012’s chief CEQA reform champion,

The first published California Environmental Quality Act case of 2013, Save Cuyama Valley v. County of Santa Barbara, strongly endorsed a lead agency’s authority to use its own, project-specific significance thresholds in an environmental impact report.  In addition, the court upheld the county’s project approval despite finding that one of the EIR’s environmental impact

The California Supreme Court announced on February 13 it has accepted review of Tuolumne Jobs & Small Business Alliance v. Superior Court, the recent decision (see our November 2 post) holding that a city council cannot choose to enact a voter-sponsored initiative without first complying with CEQA.  A previous published CEQA case had

The U.S. Supreme Court has reversed a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion that the flow of polluted water from a concrete channel to an unlined section of the same river constituted a “discharge of pollutants.”  Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.

Environmental organizations sued the Los Angeles County